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“I’m Not Stationary”

How exactly will Todd Bowles use Devin White and Lavonte David in the middle of his defense?

It’s a dream scenario for Bowles, who likely has yet to figure that out.

Joe talked to David last week about what he likes about his new role in Bowles’ 3-4 approach.

JoeBucsFan.com: A lot of fans are wondering, hey, what will Lavonte David be like as an inside linebacker. What do you like most about playing inside? Lavonte David only.

Lavonte David: In this defense I get to move around a lot. I’m not stationary. I get to do different things so it’s going to be fun for me. Coach Bowles, you know, he said it’s going to be fun to have two guys like me and Devin [White] in the middle who control everything, and the options he’ll have because of that. It’s going to be fun to see play out.

David also had an interesting reference while chatting with Joe. He talked about who would earn the right to rush the passer from the linebackers and defensive backs.

Together Bowles and Arians are all about blitzing repeatedly. David clearly wants to come after the quarterback like he did during the Greg Schiano era, but there appears to be a sense that with guys like Shaq Barrett, White, David and whoever plays nickel cornerback (Arians says his nickel has to be an extraordinary blitzer), there’s a bit of a competition to earn blitzing rights.

Regardless, Joe sensed a very healthy balance of learning and competition on all levels of the defense this spring, though of course, it’s only the offseason.

Average D rank the 4 years prior to Winston arriving: 25th
Average wins in those 4 years: 4.25

Average D rank the 4 years after Winston arrived: 24th
Average record in those 4 years: 6.75

That’s not even adjusting for the games in which Winston put the team ahead in the 4th quarter / gave the team a chance to win, only to never see the field again as the D went on to give up a winning last minute drive. I believe we charted 4 such games in 2017 alone.

If you add just those 4 wins from 2017 that we should have had that were completely on the D or special teams, we’re looking at averaging 8 wins per year despite an average D ranking of 24th.

Call it excuses if you want. IMO this is simply diagnosing what has hurt this team the most vs helped it and what we need to improve at to be a winner.

I think if that happens then we are winning like 11+ games. That’d be such a drastic improvement lol

@DB55 agree. We can eliminate at least one variable now lol.

I didn’t realize Winston has basically accounted for 3 more wins per years since he got here, since the D has been about the same level of terrible and the special teams/run game have actually been even worse cumulatively.

If you factor in the game winning drives he’s been robbed of, he basically took a perennial 4-12 team with bad defense / run game / special teams and got it to 8-8 with bad defense / run game / special teams.

This might be my last offseason to drop Winston stats, so might as well go all out lol